Back in 1982 the usage of online bulletin boards were common and they used to communicate and discuss all sort of stuff on those boards. They used to have a problem understanding some of the posts. Some of the posts were intended as a joke, or someone was being sarcastic, but then some wouldn’t get it and start a whole fight and rally up against what was supposed to be taken as a joke.

Then, on September of 1982, a bunch of guys were at their computers typing away suggestions to help solve this problem. They came up with the idea of labeling a comment or mark it with something that would make it clear that the comment is a joke and isn’t intended to be taken seriously. Some of the guys suggested:

“I think that the joke character should be the sequence {#} because it looks like two lips with teeth showing between them.”

“No, no, no! Surely everyone will agree that “&” is the funniest character on the keyboard. It looks funny”

But then came along this one guy, who typed a message that would leave a lasting impact on computer users all over the world. And this is what he had to say:

“19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman
From: Scott E Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

: – )

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use

: – (“

And just like that, it snowballed, and the computer smiley was created!